Conor J. O'Brien is as Irish as they come: soft-spoken, given to black moods and flights of literary mysticism, so full of Catholic guilt he probably sweats Communion wine. Villagers' debut album (on which he plays almost every instrument) opens with a Joycean evocation of paralysis called "I Saw the Dead," and only gets heavier. His folk rock folds U2's wide-open red skies into something you can fit in your shirt pocket, leavening fragile songs with gentle orchestrations. But young Conor is no softy; here's how he tells an ex to seek new options: "When it's your turn to disappear/I'll be cheering from the sidelines with a sandwich and a beer."

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.